All posts by Richard Grassick

Sorting Bremen’s Cycling Advocacy Toolbox

Bremen has a long history of developing tools that have been proven to encourage and enable more people to cycle. The first German cycle path was built here in 1897, cycle streets were invented in Bremen in the 1970s, as was contra-flow cycling on one-way streets. More recently, cycle neighbourhoods have been developed, and mandatory bike lanes built.

Two types of cyclist in Bremen

But there is one “tool” that has proved to be particularly unhelpful. In Bremen, it gets used yet is largely unknown. In the wider world it is recognised as a damaging idea that has set back a number of countries by decades. It is called vehicular cycling (VC). Continue reading Sorting Bremen’s Cycling Advocacy Toolbox →

Platz Da! Parliament Agrees Compromise

Platz Da! (There’s Space!) Bremen has collected 6,000 signatures in the Hanseatic city and held endless debates with politicians to make more space in Bremen for all people. Platz da! has fought for state-wide parking management, for the abolition of  parking on footpaths and cycle paths, for a proper enforcement of parking bans and for a transport transition in the city. The “comprehensive” aspect of their proposals was turned down by the ruling coalition, principally by the Social Democrats, but at least parking management is to be introduced in some districts – Mitte, Östliche Vorstadt, Schwachhausen, Findorff, Walle and Neustadt. It has been a long battle, but on 17 November 2020 parliament agreed the compromise. As an admonition and reminder for the members of parliament, the activists came to the Bürgerschaft…

1970s Tools For 2030 Aims

Bremen’s Traffic Plan 1948

Is your head stuck in the 1970s? Most of us like to think that we fit well with the modern world. We appreciate democracy. We support equal rights for all. We are tolerant and open to new ways. Yet when it comes to transport policy, many of us can’t get out of 1970s thinking.

This is the problem that haunts Transport Transition advocates. We want to reclaim the cities for people by reducing the use of motorised vehicles. But whenever proposals are presented that will do just this, so many of us cannot think beyond the problems of 1970s traffic management. Where will the cars go if they can’t go here? How can shops get their supplies without lorries? How can residents park their cars if not in the street? Even transport activists find it difficult to get over this way of thinking.  For as much as it is embedded in official government policy, it is no surprise that the transport sector has failed miserably to reduce its carbon emissions. Continue reading 1970s Tools For 2030 Aims →

One Hundred and Eighty Kilotons

What can cycling do to reduce CO2 emissions in Bremen? Here we calculate what has been done, what hasn’t, and what can be done in the coming decade.

With Fridays for Future developing a regular presence on the streets of Bremen, a transport transition blog like Bremenize must surely be asking – what can cycling do in response to the climate emergency? Generalised answers to this question abound in the cycling advocacy world, amongst concerned politicians, in Bremen’s new coalition agreement, and indeed amongst Fridays for Future activists, or at least amongst those living in a country with a cycling culture. Continue reading One Hundred and Eighty Kilotons →

Seeing Red

Bremen’s tortuous route to something resembling a Cycling City took another step forward this month with the re-surfacing of the oft-plagued cycle street Parkallee.

Regular readers of our blog will know that this semi-main artery for through traffic – it is one of the less-busy branches off the 30,000-vehicles-per-day Stern roundabout – has already been the subject of various traffic management experiments. In every case, proposals have involved the removal of existing cycleways on either side of the road, and their replacement with some form of on-road cycling. Each proposal has been dogged by conflicting demands. In an area with relatively high car ownership, local residents have been routinely double parking their vehicles on this dual carriageway street. Cyclists have been looking for more space than the ageing cycleways offer, not least as the street will be a key stretch of Bremen’s first Premium Cycle Route.  Continue reading Seeing Red →